OF INSECTS. 3J7 



their eggs in the bottom of holes and fissures, in 

 the bark of trees, &c. which they might not other- 

 wise be capable of reaching. 



ORDER VII. LEPIDOPTERA. 



THIS order includes the well known tribes of butter- 

 flies, hawk-moths, and moths properly so called, all 

 of which possess the common property of having 

 the wings, which are four in number, covered with 

 small scales or feather-like bodies. It is to this the 

 name refers, being derived from XZTTTIS, a scale. No 

 kind of insects are more dissimilar in their different 

 stages of metamorphosis. When they issue from the 

 egg they appear in the familiar form of caterpillars, 

 these change into a chrysalis, from which the perfect 

 butterfly is in due time produced. Unfortunately 

 we do not yet possess a complete systematic arrange- 

 ment and description of these insects, at least not 

 one conformable to the most recent and approved 

 method of classification. This is the case in par- 

 ticular with the nocturnal Lepidoptera or moths, 

 many of which are still undescribed. Our native 

 species, however, of which there are nearly 2000, 

 have been well described by Stephens in his Illus- 

 trations of British Entomology, by Haworth in his 

 Lepidoptera Britannica, and in several other works. 

 Among the best works on exotic Lepidoptera may 

 be mentioned Horsfield's Lepidoptera Javauica 

 Boisduval's Species General des Lepidopteres, (Paris, 



